May 18, 2015 | Headline News, Legislation
by Lee H. Hamilton There have been encouraging signs on Capitol Hill of late that Congress’s long slide into irrelevance may be slowing. Agreements on Medicare reimbursements in both houses, and on Iran, No Child Left Behind, Pacific trade and other issues in various...
May 1, 2015 | Legislation, Opinion
by Lee H. Hamilton I’ve seen a lot over my decades in politics, and not much alarms me. But I have to be blunt: Money is poisoning our political system. The people who matter most to a representative democracy — the ordinary voters in whose interests elected...
Mar 5, 2015 | Legislation, Opinion
by Lee H. Hamilton The question usually comes toward the end of a public meeting. Some knotty problem is being discussed, and someone in the audience will raise his or her hand and ask, “Okay, so what can I do about it?” I love that question. Not because...
Jan 5, 2015 | Headline News, Legislation, Opinion
by Lee H. Hamilton Recent economic news has been broadly reassuring. Retail sales are strong, November saw the best job gains in three years, the federal deficit is shrinking, the stock market is robust, and the Fed is expressing enough faith in the economy that an...
Nov 11, 2014 | Legislation, Opinion
by Lee H. Hamilton Because of its power to influence public affairs, the press has long been known as “the Fourth Estate.” But I think the media may have been displaced. These days, it’s lobbyists who seem to carry the most clout in Washington. Here’s a...
